


Flatpack Nation

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (the zayn is only in text form), Curses, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, IKEA, Ireland, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: Louis takes a trip to IKEA. He needs furniture for his new flat.He goes deeper into IKEA than he ever thought possible. He does not end up buying furniture for his new flat.





	Flatpack Nation

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, I dunno what to tell y'all. It's sort of a... fairy tale but from the opposite pov?

Louis Tomlinson is finally, he thinks, in the process of growing up. After taking two years to travel the world (or, approximately two months to travel the world and the rest of the time working in the kebab shop a mile from his house), he’s leaving home to study his dream degree - veterinary medicine - in the grand city of Dublin, Ireland. 

That’s what he keeps telling his mum as she smothers him with hugs and kisses and makes him promise to text all day every day, and also to call at least four times a week. His sisters are just excited to have his room.

When he boards the plane, the midday sun is overhead and he’s got an aisle seat. It’s not ideal but the flight isn’t particularly long, and he plans on spending the whole time playing Pokemon Go until his GPS cuts out. 

It’s the end of August and as he steps from the plane to the terminal an hour later, a blast of heat hits him before the aircon of the airport can catch up. Even after feeling ready to be rid of his family for a while (they’re  _ loud, _ okay?), the sudden knowledge that he’s far from home and not planning to return until Christmas makes him suddenly feel very,  _ very _ alone. 

Christ, why didn’t he go for a university in York?

He takes a moment to get a tea from the airport Starbucks, figuring it’ll be a bit before his luggage appears, and then settles down on a bench in front of the conveyor belt that’s cycling three tattered bags, probably lost from a previous flight. 

It’s a good twenty minutes until the luggage from his own flight starts chugging along the conveyor. By now a crowd has formed around him, and Louis has to stand in order to spot his own two black suitcases. Before he left home, his mum had adorned them with curly blue ribbons on the handles, but even so they’re hard to spot among all the other near identical black cases. Louis thinks he’ll shoot for rainbow next time. 

The sun is setting when he exits the airport and jumps in a taxi, not wanting to try Dublin’s public transport for the first time while shouldering two suitcases and a carryall. 

He’s rented a one bedroom flat that he can only hope is as nice as the pictures online suggest (which aren’t super nice to start with, but it’s a fairly cheap place so as long as there’s not water and no broken windows he’s not planning on putting up a fuss).

When the taxi drops him off, Louis is left standing on a shockingly dark and quiet street. The row of flats stretches silent and imposing in either direction, yellow lights shining through the occasional window the only illumination. 

The lock box he finds under the bushes accepts the code the landlord had emailed, and spits out two keys for him. It takes a while, but he manages to drag his bags up two flights of stairs and (panting) slip a key into the lock. It turns easily, and Louis shoves all of his things inside, shuts the door, and immediately sits on the wooden floor of the entranceway with a thud. 

A lightswitch is directly above him, and he reaches above his head to flip it on. The room lights up, stark white walls, light wooden flooring, and sparse white goods in the kitchenette opposite him. There’s two windows that look out onto the darkened street below, and two doors - closed - on the far side of the room.

_ Ah, _ he thinks, looking around.  _ Not a bad place. _

It’s completely empty save himself, his two suitcases, and his carryall. 

_ Tomorrow I have to go to Ikea, _ he thinks to himself as he begins googling for the closest takeaway. 

— 

The problem with renting a completely unfurnished flat in another country is that Louis forgot to consider that first night in which he would inevitably sleep on the pile of laundry dumped out of his suitcase, seeing as how he doesn’t have a bed.

It’s not that comfortable, if he’s being terribly honest.

Louis’ been having weird dreams for weeks, which he’s chalked up to anxiety over such a big life change. Each dream has started with him being lost in a forest, with ancient old trees towering above him. He doesn’t remember the paths he takes through the forest, but he does remember the feeling of being watched, and of knowing he needs to find something.

That’s the worst part about these dreams, actually. All he ends up finding, in fucking mystical-ass clearnings with filtered golden light shining down through the tree tops, is fucking flatpack furniture, still unboxed. 

Clearly, he’s been stressed about the move. 

Waking up much earlier than he would have liked, and once again with memories of  _ that dream _ in his head, Louis squints, shielding his eyes from the harsh morning light coming in through the windows. For a second he blames waking up so early on the different time zones, but then remembers that Dublin isn’t actually  _ in  _ a different time zone, and also when he looks at his phone he finds that it’s almost ten o’ clock.

Maybe not that early after all. 

Sitting up, he sifts through the pile of clothing under him until he fishes out a hoodie with a horse skull across it (should he really have packed this to wear while studying veterinary medicine? In hindsight this seems morbid), and a fresh pair of socks. That’ll do for the day, he reasons, since he changed out of his plane clothes last night while arranging his “bedding” to sleep on.

(Oh, did he remember to keep his dirty clothes separate?)

Louis looks at the pile beneath him.

(No, he did not). 

Groaning and stretching and feeling things in his back pop that really shouldn’t at the young age of 20, Louis retrieves his phone and, after scrolling through all the notifications from his various siblings, starts going on the hunt for IKEA. He needs to get furniture in this place before classes start next week, and he’d  _ like _ to get some furniture in the flat  _ tonight, _ before he has to sleep again. A mattress, at the very least. 

The closest one is twenty minutes away by Uber, or an hour and a half if he decides to brave the trains… He really should conserve his money and take the train, especially because he plans on taking a taxi back so that he can load it down with flatpacks.

He orders an Uber. 

The ride over is uneventful, his driver almost completely silent, although the Gaelic rap playing through the car stereo speaks for itself. Louis messages his mum to let her know he’s still alive, messages his sister a voice recording of the music playing, and messages Zayn that he’s a dick for getting drunk on their last day hanging out together and throwing up on Louis’ favourite Vans. Zayn’s already apologised for this, but Louis just isn’t over it yet. 

When Louis arrives, he’s a little disappointed - the IKEA seems smaller than the ones back home, sharing storefront space with three other establishments. He worries momentarily that there won’t even  _ be _ a mattress section.

_ But this is IKEA, _ he reasons with himself.  _ That’s, like, a requirement. _

Just after stepping out of the Upber, walking up the steps toward IKEA, Louis makes uncomfortable eye contact with an old man. 

He stands just to the right of the door, ancient-looking and stooped and rail-thin, with piercing light eyes. 

_ Creepy, _ Louis thinks as he averts his eyes. It’s as though he can feel the man’s gaze boring into him as he makes his way with the general masses through the door. 

There are people all around him, a busy Saturday full of busy lives and people who are in need of all sorts of furniture and furniture-adjacent needs. Louis checks that his phone is in one pocket and his wallet in the other as he moves through the crowd filtering in. He’s surrounded by people with strong Irish accents, which makes sense considering where he is. He wonders how long it’ll take him to find a group of friends here, once university starts. The two short months he traveled the world (or, Europe and Africa at least), he was on his own, and perfectly happy about it. Now, walking through IKEA and glancing in at all the displays, he feels like the act of buying furniture is a lot like putting down roots, and the need to form social connections as soon as possible tugs at him. 

There’s two girls looking in a kitchen exhibit that seem around his age, and the impulsive part of him almost asks them if they want to walk with him, but he scales himself back a bit. He’s not  _ that _ desperate yet. 

He texts Zayn a picture of a really ugly couch instead.

A bed, a desk, a couch, and something to eat food off of are the only things on his list for today (there will surely be more IKEA trips in the future, after all), and the further Louis walks, the more impressed he becomes. However small it looked on the outside, inside it’s absolutely huge. It feels like it goes off endlessly in all directions, as is the norm for a good IKEA.

The first area he finds are desks, and the cheapest one he can find is eighty eight euros, so he jots the number down on his wrist (because his phone is at ten percent… he really should have looked harder for his charger last night). 

He finds the couches after about ten more minutes of following the arrows. It feels like they’re leading him in a circle, but he would have passed the desks again twice at this rate so that must not be entirely true. 

The room of couches feels endless, opening up in all directions under bright fluorescent lights made brighter by the white walls and concrete floors. The couches themselves all look tempting, and Louis throws himself onto the first one he sees, sinking down deep and trying to imagine it in his flat. 

He tries another one, a deep red with weird pillows. It feels excellent as well.

He scoots over to a blue one that seems to be made of netting, then a yellow one in an L shape. He tries out three that convert into beds and imagines having friends crash on them after a night of drinking. He checks his phone, but Zayn hasn’t replied to his scolding from earlier or his couch picture. Very upsetting. 

He’s wandering through the displays with a sort of whimsical glee. Something about IKEA is just so calming for the soul. The smell of fresh furniture, the lack of clutter that convinces you that this would look great in your cluttered home, the way walking from one display to the next feels like it’s transporting you between worlds… 

Louis is a slut for IKEA, if he’s honest. 

The one difference about this IKEA is that, for some reason, the staff are  _ very  _ interested in assisting him. It feels like every time he turns a corner, someone in a yellow and blue striped uniform is there, asking him if he needs help finding something, if he’s doing alright, if he’d like something ordered. While he’s charmed by their thick Irish accents, by the fifth time it’s happened he’s started to wonder if they suspect that he’s trying to steal something. 

Louis looks down at himself, at his jeggings and his white Polari shirt. He could  _ maybe _ fit a spatula down his pants if he tucked. If IKEA thinks he’s stealing, they have more faith in Louis’ abilities than Louis has in himself. 

He makes his way down the stairs, to the lower level of IKEA (which he definitely couldn’t tell existed from the outside) where all the bins of cheap, smaller items are on display. He hasn’t technically decided on any of the things he needs to buy yet, but he figures maybe he’ll go back once he’s all the way through and just find the things that look best in hindsight. Plus, it’ll give him a chance to grab a coffee from their cafe. 

Louis really,  _ really _ is a slut for IKEA.

It’s as he’s wandering through the rows of plates and cups and silverware that yet another staff member comes up and asks him if he needs assistance. Does this make nine? 

“No,” Louis says, facing the woman. He can feel himself saying something that he’ll soon probably regret. “Does it look like I need assistance? Because there’s a lot of people here and yet just about everyone in this store has targeted me specifically. Do I look helpless?”

The woman smiles. She’s got sharp cheekbones and a high widows peak. “Of course not,” she says. “But maybe we could point you in a direction that could be of help to your specific needs.”

That sounds like nonsense to Louis. “Sure,” he says, frowning. “Actually, yeah. Go ahead. Point me in a direction.”

He expects her to ask what exactly it is that he needs, but she doesn’t. Instead, she points directly behind him. “Follow that hallway against the arrows and make a right just after the garden furniture.”

“Uh.” Louis blinks. “And what will I find?”

The woman smiles at him. It feels like she sees too much when she looks him in the eyes. “What you need,” she says. 

Oh god, is Louis going to get murdered in this IKEA?

“Right,” says Louis. “I’ll just. Go find what I need, then.”

He turns and walks in the direction that she pointed. The hallway that she had been referring to not only goes against the arrows, it goes through one of those doorways that works as a secret passage to get through IKEA by skipping whole stretches of the official pathway. It feels like cheating to go this way, but Louis feels almost like if he turns around and looks at the woman, she’ll be staring right back at him. He feels like he’s being watched. 

This is not the normal reassuring feeling that he gets from IKEA.

Still, he follows the path that she instructed. It takes him out of kitchenware and through the brightly lit lamps and lightbulbs. Families keep looking at him with slight puzzlement or annoyance as he has to skirt around them. He gazes with longing at the fancy lights that are supposed to go on shower walls, and then once through that section he finds himself in gardening. 

Did she say make a right before or after the garden furniture?

The arrows say that he should be turning before, and since she seemed fairly adamant that he go against the arrows, he continues on and around the beach chairs and trellises, making a right just behind a tall wall of fake grass (that you can buy by the square).

And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the world around him is silent. 

Louis stops in his tracks. A moment ago there was the sound of customers all around him, the sound of children yelling for cheap toys and tinny overhead music playing famous boyband songs. 

That’s gone, now. 

In it’s place is the sound of the wind. 

Louis looks in front of him, at the pathway that he’s now standing in front of. The fake grass that had been adorning the wall on the other side is here as well, and the equally fake wooden patio is below his feet. It still smells like that very specific smell that IKEA has, though. And the cool A/C controlled temperature remains, although the ceiling above him looks… like it’s not there. What was black-painted pipes and beams is now just… nothing. The fake grass seems to go up and up and up until it’s just not there anymore.

And it feels like he’s being watched. 

Louis Tomlinson is beginning to feel a bit uneasy about this IKEA. 

What did that woman think he needed? Is this where all the staff members would have sent him?

He turns around, ready to go back into the gardening section, because this feels like one of those staff-only areas that he’ll get in trouble for being in, but where he just entered, there’s only fake grass and patio flooring and darkness. 

Huh. Maybe Louis died in IKEA. 

Knowing that there is only one way to go, and that way is forward, Louis turns and takes a deep breath and does not walk forward.

Instead he checks his phone. It’s a great stalling tactic, has served him well for years.

There’s no service, but he does have a missed message from Zayn;

**Zaynie:** _ Are you going to buy that ugly ass couch? I never could figure out why you liked ikea so much anyway _

Louis wrinkles his nose. Rude! That couch was beautiful! 

(He knows it wasn’t). 

He pockets his phone (with 5% left). Well. Now he has to continue on. Because Zayn is wrong and IKEA is the best and clearly this is just a new, cooler part of IKEA. Or the part where he’s going to fight the King of IKEA for the IKEA throne. Who’s to tell. 

He moves at first with slow and careful steps, the tap-tap-tapping of his shoes on the fake wood patio flooring echoing along the hallway, deafening in the silence. 

Eventually he moves faster, because this hallway is bitchass long. The fake grass on the walls grows longer, and he starts to notice potted plants that seem to be stuck in sideways. Plastic ivy and cloth flowers with brown plastic stems. It’s just here and there at first, and then it’s everywhere, rose buds popping up in the cracks of the wooden patio between his feet, purple flowers blooming along the walls. 

The hallway opens up, wider and wider until it doesn’t feel like a hallway anymore, but a path through a garden. Not a city park sort of garden, but the kind found at an old, old estate with a mysterious gardener who lives on site and only has one working eye. The kind of garden that feels like it probably has a lion lurking in the hedge maze, or like  _ The Worst Witch  _ could film a crossover scene with  _ Harry Potter _ in. 

Tim Curry would be there, of course. 

The whole time Louis walks, he feels like he’s being watched. He tries not to turn and stare at the foliage too much because something inside of him is convinced he would see what’s looking at him, and that probably would not be good. 

And then, the pathway opens up, and he finds himself in a clearing. 

Louis looks up, and sees a blue-grey sky with whisps of clouds. The moon shines bright, almost ridiculously white against the dark sky and illuminating the clearing he’s found himself in. 

In front of him stand what look like ancient oaks, gnarled and thick and twisted with deep green leaves. They stand tall and proud and form a circle around the clearing that all the other greenery seem to make their home between. Tiny bright flowers that seem to glow in the moonlight, ivy that snakes up the trunks of the oaks and hangs from the branches, moss that covers the patches in between. 

And then, Louis spots the one thing that’s not like the other - deep in the underbrush between the two tallest, mightiest oaks is a man. 

His feet are on the ground, but his arms are stretched above his head, caught among the vines that hang from the oak trees. His head hangs low, and long brown curls cover his face and shoulders. His trousers look like they were tan once, but have moss growing up them just like the surrounding trees. 

“Um,” Louis says. His voice echoes around the clearing. 

Maybe this  _ is _ the IKEA murder place.  

The man doesn’t move. “Hello?” Louis tries again, louder. 

He steps forward, and puts one hand out against the nearest tree. As soon as he does the man shudders and raises his head, rolling it to one side. He looks tired, so tired. His eyes squint at Louis for a long moment before he begins to twist his arms this way and that.

“Excuse me, do I know you?” Louis asks. It’s probably not what he should be focusing on right now, but there’s something familiar about the man in front of him.

“You- you shouldn’t be here,” the man grunts as he struggles with the vines that hold his arms trapped above him.

“What- in IKEA?”

The man stares at him. “Do you truly still think you’re in IKEA?” he asks.

“Well,” Louis shrugs. “I haven’t _ left.” _ He takes a step forward and then stops. “Do you want help?”

“Uh-” the man breathes a deep, shuddering breath. “No, you- please, turn around and go back. You need to go.”

“No,” Louis says, pursing his lips. “You seem to be, like, kidnapped. And I think you’re in trouble? So I’m not going to, I don’t think.”

He takes another step forward and as he does so the wind whips up around him, rustling the leaves and branches around him. Then, in its wake, that feeling of being watched is intensified times a million. Louis shivers. He feels like the very plants are peering up at him. 

“Louis Tomlinson.”

Jumping in surprise, Louis turns around and comes face to face with a man his own age standing at the centre of the clearing. He’s got dark hair and a cleft chin and ears that are just a little bit too sharp at the corners. He’s wearing something that looks like a tunic, thin and white and flowing to his knees with black dressy trousers and black oxfords.

“Why do you know my name?” Louis squeaks, looking between the two men he’s standing between. He backs up to try to keep both of them in his sight. 

“We’ve been waiting for you,” the man in the centre of the clearing says. “You’ve taken longer than we thought. You really like kitchen utensils.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Louis points out. 

“I know your name because you’re important,” the man says. “At least, you’re important to this one here.”

Louis looks where he points, to the man suspended in the vines. “I am?” he asks.

The man in the vines says nothing. He gazes past Louis, like he’s determined not to look at him. 

“My name is Niall,” says the man with the sharp ears. “I have three tests for you. If you pass all three, he will be able to go with you. If you do not, he will stay with us forever.”

“That’s a bit much,” Louis hedges. “Like, I like IKEA, but I think that’s pretty illegal. Pretty sure Ireland has laws against kidnapping.”

Niall laughs, his serious facade momentarily broken. “He pledged himself to us already,” he says. “Plus, the laws of the fae are much more ancient than the laws of Ireland.”

“Pledged like an American fraternity?” Louis asks. “Are fraternities run by fairies?”

“We really prefer to be called fae,” Niall says. “It’s a thing.”

Louis turns back to the man in the vines. “Seriously, do I know you? What’s your name?”

The man opens his mouth, but nothing but a choking sound comes out.”

“Oi!” Niall snaps and Louis looks back to him. “Honestly, can you not pay attention for two minutes? That’s the whole point of the tests. Come on.”

“Sorry, fine, what are your tests?” Louis asks. He shivers as the wind whips around him and through the clearing. 

“It’s a simple three questions,” Niall says, clearly happy to have his attention. “The first is mind, the second is heart, the third is soul.”

“Sure, fancy questions,” Louis says. “Continue.”

Niall raises his eyebrows. “Fine, question one.” He points to the man in the vines. “How do you know this man?”

“So I  _ have _ met you before!” Louis shouts triumphantly, turning to the man. “Wait, fuck. Where have I met you before?”

“You have to open your heart,” says Niall. 

“You say that as if it’s a normal thing,” Louis snaps. “I’m not a bloody anatomy model.” And I thought you said the first question was mind.”

“I-” Niall groans. “Shut up. Answer the question.”

Louis frowns. He turns back and looks at the man. His long curls and his light stubble and his cupid’s bow lips. 

Nothing comes to mind. 

The man raises his head and looks Louis in the eye. He looks tired, defeated. Louis wants to help him, but he just can’t think— 

“Oh,” Louis says. Something is there. Something like a memory buried deep inside of him. Of green eyes and cupid’s bow lips and chubby, chubby cheeks. “Wait. You’re the kid… from the park. Aren’t you?”

The man’s expression seems to lift, just a fraction. 

“Is that your final answer?” Niall asks, arms folded.

Louis turns back to him. “Yeah,” he says. “The park at the end of my road, when we were in primary school. I saw him there every afternoon for almost three years, and then he-” he turns back to the man in the vines. “You stopped showing up? You didn’t tell me beforehand, you were just gone one day.”

The man nods, but he doesn’t speak. 

“Yeah, yeah okay,” Niall says. He waves his hand and a glow comes from his fingers. Nothing seems to happen from it, but it’s pretty cool looking. “You’ve answered the first question correctly. Now, the second test - what is his name?”

“His name?” Louis asks, frowning. “Uh.” 

He should know this. These memories, of three years spent together after school when they were children, feel like such a huge part of his life. How did he forget this? How did he forget the way he used to cry on the days when it stormed because he couldn’t go see—

Go see— 

Fuck. 

Louis groans. It feels like it’s at the edge of his mind, just out of his grasp. “Hold up,” he says. “What happens if I don’t pass these tests?”

“Moss,” Niall says.

“What?”

“He turns to moss,” Niall explains, pointing to the man in the vines. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“No,” Louis draws out. “That was  _ not _ obvious and also, way to put the pressure on me!”

“Well you asked!” Niall argues, sounding exasperated. “Look. If you’re able to pass the test, the answers will be in your heart. That’s just how it works.”

“Makes no sense, but okay.” Louis wrings his hands together. “Just— give me a fucking minute, yeah?”

“Take your time,” Niall says. “It’s not like I’ve got shit to do or anything.”

“Whatever,” Louis says. “You’re the one hanging out in the IKEA forest.”

He turns back to the man in the vines. “Okay, so I definitely remember you,” he says, because maybe speaking it out loud will jog his memory. “You lived down the lane on the far side of the park. I met you… When I was in Year 2 and you had just started primary. You always had half a banana for a snack and you always tried to trade it for my chocolate buttons.” 

The man is watching him intently, and his eyes, those green eyes, are so familiar. How could Louis have forgotten them?

“And we were best friends,” Louis continues. “We made a blood pact that day that you fell on the pavement and skinned your knee and I carried you home by piggy back and the blood got all down my uniform too.

“In Year 3 we met at the park every single day on the way home from school except those really rainy days when my mum would make me take the shortcut through the school garden, and you were always mad at me when I did even though it wasn’t my fault.

“When I was in Year 4, you asked if I wanted to sneak into your attic and live there and I said no, but only because my mum had twins on the way and I wanted to meet them.

“And then…” Louis frowns, and he concentrates because it gets fuzzier here. “You… left. In the summer before year 5. And you didn’t tell me or anything, you just stopped showing up.”

“Is this really helping you?” Niall cut in. “I mean it’s a nice story and all, but—”

“Harry!” Louis shouts. “Your name was Harry! The only time I ever heard from you after that was that letter you sent, telling me you had moved away. But I didn’t understand it, because I…” Louis blinks. “I had already forgotten you.” He looks up at Harry again. “Why had I forgotten you?”

Harry, the man in the vines, straightens up. He opens his mouth to speak but still no words come out. 

“Because that’s what happens when you meet the fae,” Niall cuts in, stepping forward. “Mere humans can’t look on a member of the fae and remember it afterward. Harry here,” and he motions to Harry, “should never have been in your world in the first place. It was a mistake and now he’s paying the price.”

“He was a  _ child,” _ Louis argues. “We both were!”

“Those are the rules,” Niall says. “They aren’t  _ my _ rules! I’m not a fucking monster.”

“You’ve got him tied to a tree!” Louis snaps.

“Don’t shoot the messenger!” Niall argues back. “I’m the one who brought you here! Took long enough, seeing as how you decided to ‘travel the world’ or whatever before university. And he’s the one who decided to fall in love with you and refuse to renounce his ties to humanity1”

Louis fishmouths. “How long have you—”

“Last test!” Niall cuts him off with a flourishing hand movement. “Do you, Louis William Tomlinson, human, pledge your life to Harry Edward Styles, fae, to learn to love and to swear to protect?”

“I-” Louis blinks. “Not  _ ‘do I love him’, _ but  _ ‘do I pledge to learn to love him’?” _

“Well yeah,” Niall says. “You haven’t seen him in over a century. Love is something nourished and grown with care. I’m not talking about a little crush, I’m saying the stuff that takes work.”

“Oh. Well, of course,” Louis says. “That seems like the easiest answer.”

“You’d be surprised,” Niall says. “The selfishness of humanity never fails to amaze me. Well, go on then.” He motions to Harry. “Seal the pledge with a kiss, that’s how this shit works.”

“It’s really that easy?” Louis asks, suspicious.

“I mean he’s been waiting here a very long time, I think it wasn’t as easy on him,” Niall lectures. “Don’t make him wait any longer, hurry up.”

“Right, sure, what was I thinking?” Louis mutters as he surges through the undergrowth toward Harry. It feels awkward as he reaches him, this man suspended in vines whom he hasn’t seen in over a decade. Harry looks at him with bright eyes, though, hopeful.

“This feels terribly forward of me,” Louis says, touching his cheek reverently. “I hope my breath doesn’t smell bad, I’m not sure what I’ve had today besides IKEA coffee.”

Harry surges forward to meet his lips before he’s prepared, and their kiss is messy, with the clacking of teeth and noses in the way. But it’s a kiss, and apparently acceptable to the fae magic around them. 

And then, everything around them is not as it was. There is no wind and no greenery and no moon or dark skies above. There is only white walls and the smell of flatpack furniture and a very gaudy couch that they’re sprawled across, Harry having collapsed into Louis’ arms. 

Niall is gone, but hordes of IKEA shoppers have taken his place.

“Holy fuck,” Louis says.

Harry groans, putting a hand to his head.

“Are you all right?” Louis reaches up and brushes a strand of hair from Harry’s face.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Oh god, I’m so sorry about this.”

“About what?” Louis asks.

Harry motions to himself.

“About my fit new boyfriend? That doesn’t seem like something to apologise for,” argues Louis.

“I don’t even have a National Insurance number,” Harry says weakly. “I’m not even sure if I’m fae or human at this point.”

“I have a big empty flat that I’m buying furniture for,” Louis says. “Since I think we’re going to fall in love and live happily ever after, I’d say you can probably move in now.”

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says. 

“Shush,” Louis says, reaching out and tangling their fingers together. “We’re young dumb and stupid, we can make this work.”

 

(And they do).


End file.
